Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread — This is without a doubt the BEST pumpkin bread recipe! This pumpkin cream cheese bread tastes like it has cheesecake baked into the middle. You’ll definitely want a second slice!
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The BEST Pumpkin Bread with Cream Cheese Filling
Ever since I made my Cream Cheese-Filled Banana Bread I wanted to try it with pumpkin. I adapted the recipe by swapping pumpkin puree for bananas, added warming spices, and it worked beautifully.
The bread is soft, moist, springy, dense yet still fluffy, and it’s nicely spiced. Like all of my pumpkin, carrot, and sweet potato desserts, using enough spices to ensure the final result is full-flavored and satisfying is key.
The cream cheese layer that runs through the bread is like having a layer of cheesecake baked into pumpkin bread. It really makes the bread out of this world good.
It’s an easy, no mixer recipe that goes from bowl to oven in minutes. I used melted coconut oil so there’s no butter to cream and no mixer to dirty. Oil keeps bread softer and springier than butter, and I prefer the taste.
A little sour cream (or Greek yogurt) is extra insurance for a soft, springy, bouncy, fluffy loaf. Using sour cream, Greek yogurt, or buttermilk in quick bread and muffin recipes ensures more tender results. Anything baked with pumpkin has the natural advantage of being moister because of how moist pumpkin is.
Between the cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, tangy cream cheese, and the moist, soft bread with rich pumpkin flavor, this is my idea of comfort food!
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread Ingredients
You’ll need mostly pantry staples to make the pumpkin bread with cream cheese filling. Gather the following:
For the pumpkin bread:
- Egg
- Pumpkin puree
- Light brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- Melted coconut oil
- Sour cream
- Vanilla extract
- Cinnamon
- Pumpkin pie spice
- Ground nutmeg
- All-purpose flour
- Baking powder
- Baking soda
For the cream cheese filling:
- Egg
- Cream cheese
- Granulated sugar
- All-purpose flour
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread
Don’t let that cream cheese filling scare you off, it takes just a couple extra minutes to prepare and adds SO much flavor and texture!
Here’s an overview of how the pumpkin cheesecake bread is made:
- Whisk together the quick bread batter.
- Spread roughly two-thirds of it into a greased 9×5-inch loaf pan.
- Whisk together the cream cheese filling and spread it carefully over the batter.
- Pour the remaining pumpkin batter over the cream cheese layer.
- Bake the pumpkin bread until the top is golden and domed and the center is set.
A Note About Bake Times
Normally I’d say to insert a toothpick into the middle to see if it comes out clean to test the doneness of the pumpkin cream cheese loaf, but that’s tough to do here since the cheesecake filling never fully sets while the bread is baking.
You may want to tent the pan with a sheet of foil draped over it at the 35-minute mark if you feel the tops and sides will become too browned before center cooks through.
Baking times will vary based on moisture content of pumpkin, cream cheese, climate, and oven variances. Bake until done; watch your bread, not the clock.
Tips for Making Pumpkin Bread with a Cream Cheese Swirl
Pumpkin puree: Make sure you’re using pumpkin puree and NOT pumpkin pie filling for this pumpkin cream cheese bread recipe. Pumpkin pie filling is sweetened and spiced and will mess up the flavor and texture of this bread.
Cream cheese: You need to use brick-style cream cheese and not the kind that comes in a tub. Cream cheese in a tub is often moister than brick-style cream cheese, which can turn the cream cheese filling into a runny mess.
Spices: Feel free to add more or less spices to this pumpkin bread. I like my pumpkin breads to be well flavored, but I know not everyone likes as much cinnamon as I do.
Recipe FAQs
I’m not sure why you’d want to miss out on the cheesecake-y filling, but you’re welcome to omit it if desired.
Coconut oil adds a nearly imperceptible undertone that’s sweeter and more fragrant than canola or vegetable oil, but substitute with them if you’d like.
Mix-ins like chocolate chips, chopped nuts, and raisins would taste great in this cream cheese-swirled pumpkin bread. However, these kinds of mix-ins are quite heavy, so they may sink into the cream cheese layer and your bread wouldn’t turn out looking perfectly polished. If that doesn’t bother you, try adding in the mix-ins and see what happens.
Very easily! Let it first cool completely, then wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze. When you’re ready to eat the frozen bread, set it on your counter overnight to thaw.
Recipe Video Tutorial
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Cream Cheese-Filled Pumpkin Bread
Ingredients
Bread
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup liquid-state coconut oil, canola or vegetable may be substituted
- ¼ cup cup sour cream, lite is okay; or Greek yogurt may be substituted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- pinch salt, optional and to tast
Cream Cheese Filling
- 1 large egg
- 4 ounces softened brick-style cream cheese, lite is okay
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray one 9×5-inch loaf pan with floured cooking spray, or grease and flour the pan; set aside.
- Make the Bread Batter
- In a large bowl, add the the first ten ingredients, through ground nutmeg, and whisk to combine.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, optional salt, and fold with spatula or stir gently with a spoon until just combined; don’t overmix; set aside.
- Turn about two-thirds of the batter out into the prepared pan, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula and pushing it into corners and sides as necessary; set aside.
- Make the Cream Cheese Filling
- In a large bowl, add all the filling ingredients and whisk to combine. Alternatively, mix with a hand mixer.
- Evenly pour filling mixture over the bread, smoothing the top lightly with a spatula and pushing it into corners and sides as necessary.
- Top filling with remaining pumpkin bread batter, smoothing the top very lightly with a spatula as to not disturb cream cheese layer and pushing batter into corners and sides as necessary.
- Bake for about 48 minutes or until the top is domed, golden, and the center is set, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, or with a few moist crumbs, but no batter. Note this is tricky because the cream cheese never gets totally solid so the toothpick test isn’t the most accurate. *
- Allow bread to cool in pan for about 15 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely before slicing and serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Pumpkin Cream Cheese Recipes:
Easy Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting — Moist pumpkin cake is topped with a creamy homemade cream cheese frosting. This easy fall dessert is perfect for Thanksgiving, Halloween, and more!
Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting — These super soft and moist pumpkin bars are the perfect EASY fall dessert!! Tangy cream cheese frosting is a wonderful complement to these perfectly pumpkin-spiced bars!!
Cream Cheese Pumpkin Roll — No dish towel required to roll up my classic pumpkin roll cake that’s full of rich pumpkin spice flavor and tangy cream cheese frosting!
Pumpkin Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting — A marriage of pumpkin cake and carrot cake into one soft, moist, tender, and amazing cake!! The tangy cream cheese frosting is truly the icing on this easy cake!!
The Best Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls — Super soft, fluffy pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls topped with a cream cheese glaze! Move over, Cinnabon, these are better!!
Copycat Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins — Super soft, moist, brimming with pumpkin spice flavor, and filled with tangy-sweet cream cheese filling!
Cooking With Pumpkin: Recipes That Go Beyond the Pie – My second cookbook with over 50 pumpkin recipes including sweets, savory, drinks, and a photo for nearly every recipe. I’d be super grateful if you headed over to Amazon
Originally posted August 2014 and republished October 23, 2019 and August 13, 2021 with updated text.
Had a friend coming over and wanted to have a yummy baked bread ready. Used my food processer for most steps except adding the flour mixture. In my attempt to hurry, I forgot to add the egg to the cream cheese filling. Needless to say, it came out perfect! Looks just like your photo! Also threw in pecans, cuz who doesn’t like those in pumpkin bread! And I had just the soft spread cream cheese so I used that. Thank you for a delicious and easy clean up recipe!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! And yes to easy clean up recipes, too!
I just made this lovely pumpkin bread~ followed the recipe exactly~ except I wanted more cream cheese filling. I doubled all the ingredients for the cream cheese layer except only used 1 egg. It came out beautifully!!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Great idea on the cream cheese layer and keeping it to 1 egg was a smart move so it didn’t taste too ‘eggy’.
Hello! I’ve been a ‘baking fool’ (lol) these past 2 days making 6 batches of this cream cheese – filled pumpkin bread for our friends. I must say it took a lot of my time in making this. The pumpkin mixture is a little hard to work with as it wants to stick to the utensils when trying to smooth the layers and push it to the corners. The top layer was the hardest as it was almost impossible to spread the pumpkin mixture without disturbing the cream cheese. As of a half hour ago my husband and I finally was able to taste this bread ourselves. The final outcome: although the bread does taste good, the cream cheese just wasn’t what I had hoped for. Reason is, 1) not enough of it as the ribbon looked to be too thin, and 2) cream cheese taste wasn’t strong enough as the pumpkin over powered it too much. Cream cheese is my favorite so that’s the reason for trying this recipe as the combination sounded great. I’m just wondering what I can do different that would improve the cream cheese?
I haven’t made the bread in any other way than indicated. You could try doubling the cream cheese amount and seeing how that goes…but since I haven’t tried it, I can’t comment on baking time or final result. Thanks for trying the recipe.
Hey there! About to try this recipe. Was wondering what size can of pumpkin do you use? Or. How much? Becuase I purchased one of the overly large cans of pumpkin puree. Thank you! Looks delicious.
In this recipe you definitely don’t use the whole can – of any size – of puree, you just use 1 cup. But I generally purchase 15-ounce cans.
So, of course, I’m the one person who reads and re-reads and re-reads AGAIN and recipe and still can’t seem to read it correctly. I kept reading one can instead of one cup. Anyway, I tried this recipe last time and it turned out PERFECT! The whole family loved it and it had a picture perfect pumpkin to cream cheese ratio. Will definitely we making again before the holidays are over!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
Can, cup, well…as long as you figured it out before you made it which it sounds like you did, it’s all good :) Glad it was a hit and that you’ll make it again!
I was a little nervous about making this after reading the large variability of experiences with this recipe, but I decided to go for it because you’ve never steered me wrong! I substituted vegetable oil for coconut oil. I added 1.5 Tablespoons flour extra to the cream cheese so that it wouldn’t be runny like other commenters said. Mine was nice and thick. I added too much of the bread batter first so that after I put the cream cheese in and added the rest of the bread batter, there wasn’t enough to cover the cream cheese. The batter was thinner than the cream cheese so it kind of sunk into it. It looked more like a swirl by the time I smoothed it all down. I was disheartened by then that I’d messed it all up.
I baked it 45 minutes and used a tent at 35 mins. The bread turned out delicious. Soft and moist. Some of the pieces look a little swirled and some have the nice center streak of cream cheese. Either way, huge hit!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Glad it was a huge hit!
Second day making this recipe..made it yesterday and the family loved it..doubled the recipe today and the house is smelling wonderful..didn’t add the cream cheese..too sweet for us..
thank you for the great recipe..it’s a keeper :)
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you! Glad you’ve made it two days in a row AND doubled it! :)
Omg delicious!!! I was thrilled with how fantastic the result was. It looks so pretty with a ribbon of cream cheese through it and the taste of pumpkin, nutmeg and cinnamon were absolutely delicious. This recipe requires major major self restraint; I probably could’ve finished off the entire loaf in one sitting :) Great recipe Averie!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
I made the bread the other night and I had trouble getting the middle to bake thoroughly.
BUT, it was absolutely delicious so I just made another batch but this time I made muffins! I did everything exactly the same, just baked them less, for about 25 minutes. They look so cute! Thanks for this recipe!
Thanks for trying the recipe and all ovens are different and maybe a few more minutes would have done the trick? but glad you turned it into muffins! They sound wonderful!
Am I the only one that had dsasterous results? Still mushy in the middle, burnt & sunk in on the top…. I had to keep adding 10 minutes till I ended up cooking it for 35 extra minutes (added to the 48) and it’s still uncooked consistentcy in the middle. What happened. I did another pumpkin bread recently that had the same outcome…. Could it be the brand of pumpkin purée I used? I also refuse to use foil (no aluminum) in cooking so, I couldn’t make the tent….
I use Libby’s brand pumpkin puree. The foil doesn’t even touch the food. You literally make a tent with it to shield the top from the direct heat of the oven so that the outside doesn’t become burnt like yours did, while giving the interior a longer time to cook.
Also, are you baking soda and powder brand new and totally fresh? That’s a huge thing that many people overlook. I bake with King Arthur brand All-Purpose flour because it is so superior (IMO) to any other flour and worth the extra couple of bucks. Your baked goods will turn out better, I promise. There’s more gluten which means extra rise and lift, i.e. less sinking.
Thanks for trying the recipe. Oh and your oven could be running on the cool side. That can cause sinking b/c the internal temp of the food never gets quite hot enough, hence it falls upon cooling.
I made this recipe and it turned out great!! I love how moist the bread is. Perfect fall recipe!
Thanks for trying the recipe and I’m glad it came out great for you!
this loaf turned out horrible. there was not enough batter to cover the cream cheese, so quickly had to make more (I halved the recipe). the cream cheese layer was thin and runny. once baked, it had a slimy texture both inside and out. really disappointed. I wish I had read the comments before making it.
I’m sorry the recipe didn’t work out for you. Many people have left glowing comments and that it turned out wonderfully for them. Not sure what happened in your case to contribute to the texture and as far as not having enough batter,it’s easy to over-estimate the amount you add to the first layer and then for the second layer they’re running short. Thanks for trying the recipe.
Where do I find pumpkin purée?
In the baking aisle of most any grocery store, Target, etc.
I was really excited to make this, but the cream cheese mixture was completely liquid for me. When I put the top 1/3 of the bread batter on, it just sunk into the liquid cream cheese mixture and the cream cheese floated to the top edges. The cream cheese mixture looked fine until I mixed the egg in, then that’s when it turned too liquid. I used regular Philadelphia brand cream cheese, as we don’t have Trader Joe’s where I live.
Hmmm that’s odd that it was so runny and thin. I have never had that problem. Did you remember to add the flour? That is definitely necessary or it will be too thin. I would say in the future to add another tablespoon or two of flour over what I recommended if you think that it’s excessively runny. I’ve never had anyone write with this issue and have never experienced it myself so just guessing at a possible solution. Thanks for trying the recipe.
Thank you so much for your reply!! I did indeed add the flour. I’m based in the UK- it may be that our cream cheese is slightly different than your USA product!
Ahhh, that’s probably the case. Even though it’s Philadelphia brand, it likely has a different consistency and I know European flours can be quite different than ours. I would just add enough flour next time so it’s not too runny and you should be all set!
Wondering what your pumpkin pie spice has in it? I don’t buy premixed spices…I mix my own.
A mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, allspice, ginger. All brands vary on ratios. In the pumpkin cookbook that I wrote I developed my own favorite blend https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1581572689/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1581572689&linkCode=as2&tag=lovvegyogruna-20&linkId=ZJXBU54ZN2H76TQ4
i didnt see your reply cause pinterest kept shutting down but i cooked it in glass bread dish at 325 degrees for 60 minutes with tin foil covering it the last 15 minutes and it turned out perfect. thanks for a great recipe!
Thanks for trying the recipe and glad it came out great for you!
Can i use a glass bread dish to make this? if so, should i adjust the cooking time or temp?
I haven’t made it in glass so can’t say for sure how to adjust the time. You may need to bake longer, or not, I can’t say for sure. Don’t adjust the temp.